Scott Morrison has retreated from questions about his awkward public clash with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The conflict flared when the prime minister claimed Mr Turnbull over-stepped his brief during an official visit to Indonesia, where he spoke about trade and warned against moving Australia's embassy in Israel.
Mr Morrison was forced to correct the record after the former prime minister revealed he was given a briefing on the two issues and explicitly asked to discuss them in Bali.
Less than 24 hours after the humiliating backdown, Mr Morrison was desperate to put the shambolic episode to bed.
"I dealt with all those issues yesterday," he told reporters in Sydney, before calling an end to his press conference.
"Thanks very much, ta, thank you."
Earlier, cabinet minister Christopher Pyne tried to laugh off the exchange.
"Well, nice try, but we're focused as a government on the economy and jobs," he told the Nine Network.
"We're not going to become distracted by these kinds of peripheral issues."
Mr Pyne denied it was a bad look for a sitting and former prime minister to be butting heads in public, and rejected suggestions the coalition would be punished for its internal disunity at the next election.
"We are getting on with the job and the public realise it," he said.
"They are tuning out of the soap opera of politics and they are focused on the choice at the next election."
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Mr Morrison had blundered trying to "suck up to Alan Jones on 2GB".
"What an extraordinary thing that Mr Morrison should try to misrepresent the basis on which his predecessor was sent to Indonesia," Mr Dreyfus told reporters.
"It's now clear that Mr Turnbull was sent on the basis that he would be discussing the move of the embassy, that he would he discussing trade."
